Night Below Chat Summary for 22 June 01

Battle with the Servitor Derro, rounds 4 and 5

 

Note: for those following the storyline via these summaries, there was an e-mail turn this past week.  You can find it on the History page of the web site, just before the link to this summary.

 

We started out the chat session with the party reacting to the sudden appearance of the derro behind the group.

 

Giving in to Finslayer’s urgings to close with the derro, Castinar drops his crossbow and runs back to support Matar.  His strike is both true and powerful, killing the derro lieutenant.

 

Katrina, wanting to help Thengal, plugs two arrows into the derro battling the dwarf.  She is able to kill him.  She then watches up the tunnel for any new derro who show their faces.

 

That’s when Matar does “the move”.  He steps forward and swings at the derro next to him.  The derro’s head goes flying from his shoulders.  Matar’s continue swings, slicing a 6” deep gash in a second derro, killing him instantly.  But wait, that’s not all.  A third derro stands in the way of the blade and he too looses his head.

 

Think it’s over?  Think again.  Without breaking his momentum Matar spins around, moving forward as he does so.  The katana slashes downward once more, and another derro dies.  As the final part of the same motion Matar reverses the katana and plunges it deep into the gut of a fifth derro, slaying him.

 

(OOC: For those of you who may be wondering what happened, Matar has cleave, great cleave, and mighty cleave - something available only to samurai.  His possible damage with all his buff spells was d10+24.  Out of the five damage rolls, he hit 32 four times, and 34 the fifth.  Thus five derro died by a single attack.)

 

Finding himself standing in the middle of a mess of derro body parts, but having no more derro around him, Matar flew over to where Bohica stood, requesting that the war wizard cast Haste on him.

 

Nikki flew forward cautiously, keeping an eye down the tunnel.  Shadow set up to cover the wall of stone Ari just erected, just in case the derro behind it break through.  Amber gulped down a potion of neutralize poison (avoiding a second ST vs poison) and then moved forward, keeping an eye on the stone wall.  She glanced over the top, seeing the derro making preparations to try and take the wall down.  Diana moved forward, readying a spell just in case any derro came down the tunnel towards the party.

 

As it just so happened, a derro did start down the tunnel.  Katrina saw him and hit him with her last arrow.  The derro motioned behind him to “stay back”, but another derro came forward.

 

Knowing through the Combat Empathy link that the derro are working to break through the wall, Ariessus reinforces it and completely seals the tunnel. K’harn continues to stand guard near her. 

 

Still invisible, Thengal rushes forward and attacks the wounded derro in the tunnel, killing it.  Back in the main area Bohica casts Haste on Matar.

 

We then began round 5.  Castinar checked out the hidden room the derro had come from, finding (much to his relief) that it didn’t open up into a new area. 

 

Meanwhile, the derro in the barracks area start trying to get out.  They cast what several believe is a lightning bolt at the wall of stone.  It shudders slightly, but seems to be holding.

 

Now hasted on top of everything else, Matar flies forward, deep into the derro lair.  The plan had called for him to leap into the savants’ room and take them by surprise.  Now surprise may have been lost.  Drawing near the room he notices the derro scrambling to react to the party’s attack.  The only one Matar has a clear shot on turns out to be the derro leader.  The fighter bravely charges in, attacking the derro leader with great skill and inflicting a very serious wound.  The derro leader calls out, letting the others know he is under attack by an invisible foe.  Now that he’s in the room, Matar sees that the derro savants are quickly making ready to counter-attack, including having several of them mount up on the flying spiders.

 

Nikki, also invisible, flies up into the room with the derro, but stays back for the moment, trying to decide where to best use her spells.

 

Back at the barricade, Shadow remains vigilant for anything breaking through the wall of stone. 

 

That’s when things went downhill for Matar.  The derro savants quickly coordinate their spells.  One of the spider riders flies over Matar’s position and casts a spell creating fog in the area.  This allows a second savant on the ground to spot Matar.  The savant casts Dispel Magic on the warrior.

 

(OOC: At this point in the chat session I was having the savant us a maximized spell with dispel magic, which is prohibited, but I had missed that prohibition.  So after the session I went back and re-rolled all of the spells.  Most of the spells Matar had running - especially invisibility, some of his buff spells, and stoneskin, were dispelled.  Others, including spell immunity (protecting him from the flayer) and fly were not.  See the grid for a list of the spells.  Those crossed out were dispelled.  Note I forgot to roll vs the Combat Empathy spell in the after-chat rolling.  That spell survives as well.  Also the use of fog to pinpoint Matar generated quite a bit of controversy.  I address that issue in a follow-on OOC post.)

 

Following Matar, Katrina flies forward, positioning herself where she can watch both the savant derro and the derro in the room with the slaves.  She sees those with the slaves are piled around near the entrance to that cave.  She also notes that several of the derro have slaves chained to them.  After surveying her targets she hits the spider of the derro who cast the fog with one of Dessy’s Surprise arrows, burning the spider.

 

Further back in the cave, Amber casts Protection from Evil on herself, then moves forward.  Diana moves forward as well, then tries to cast an Ice Storm into the derro savant lair.  However, something blocks her spell and it fizzles.  Right after that Hunter flies forward and ends up slamming into an invisible wall.  He manages to flutter to the ground, but is badly hurt.  On the plus side, between the last two events the party figures out that there is now a Wall of Force up, blocking the tunnel ahead of them.  (OOC: thick blue line on the map.  Also OOC we talked about this later and decided that the party would have known something was up when the wall originally went up since it would have cut off the Combat Empathy with those on different sides of the wall.)

 

Ari and K’harn continue watching the stone wall.  It appears to be holding. 

 

Aware that he can’t get through the Wall of Force in front of him without help, Thengal refocuses, ready to act as soon as he can next round.

 

That’s where we called it a night.

 

This may be pushing it, but I’d still like to go for 2 e-mail rounds this week.  That means I need a bunch of intentions in by Monday, when I’ll put the intentions summary out.  I can then put the turn out on Tuesday.  Wednesday for intentions, then the second turn on Thursday.  We’ve got one day we can slip there, but that’s all.

 

Also be aware that Jamie is talking about trying to go camping this weekend.  I’ll keep you informed.

 

There is a follow-on OOC post for this turn.  I’ll send it out via e-mail after this and it will also be available on the web.

 

So, questions and intentions for the next round?  Please remember NOT to quote this entire turn when posting intentions.

 

Saif